My Mikan
by SanityDeprived
Summary: Hi! This a story by my friend "PURPLEBOB!". Apparently she's "too busy" to create an account of her own, so, here's Purplebob presenting My Mikan!


It was midnight. I should've been sleeping, (or at least at a party or in a friend's house) like most guys my age would be. But what was I doing here, walking aimlessly and getting drenched in the rain?

I was normally tensed. Normally looked like I hadn't slept in days, which most of the time I hadn't, and being out when I should be sleeping obviously wasn't good for me. But it wasn't my fault. I couldn't stand it – pretending that my heart wasn't aching every second it beat, pretending to be withdrawn and uncaring, even though God knew – that is, if he even bothered paying attention to me after all that I'd done – that that wasn't true.

How could it be, if every time I saw her it was hard to breathe from being reminded of everything I'd left behind? If my gut clenched every time I saw her with him? _Every single time_, even now, almost three years later?

It was like a wound that wouldn't heal – a wound that just got worse every single passing moment that I had to stay away from possibly the one woman in the universe that I was willing to give up my life for. At least the only surviving one.

The pain was almost enough for me to regret my decision – almost, but not quite.

I told myself, like many times before, that it was for the best. She was better off with him. He was probably the only one that could possibly keep her happy, now that I was gone from her life. She probably hated me now. Hated my guts.

And the worst part was, I couldn't blame anyone but myself. Not Ruka, for loving her, and being with her when I couldn't. For taking care of her like I wished I did. Besides, _I'd _been the one who left her. And it was needed at the time. I wouldn't have been able to live with the idea that they might kill her the same way they'd done Aoi just to get to me. The Academy was a dangerous place. I'd had to stay away from her, at least while I was there. But when we got out, it was already too late. It was obvious that Ruka would be a much better match than I would. They were both of the same substance. All bright, encouraging smiles. They suited each other, and if she loved him back, then what could I do about it?

I sat down on one of the benches that lined the path. It was wet, but it didn't really matter – I was soaked anyways.

Normally, I wouldn't even be in this park. It was too far away from my flat, and I hadn't driven all the way here. But I needed to walk, away from all the traffic, all the people.

Especially after what I'd heard today.

Not that I heard much in general. After getting out of the Academy a year ago, I'd tried to stay away from my former class as much as I could. And a certain brunette even more.

But most of us lived in the same city. Us Alices had to "stick together" didn't we? I laughed humorlessly. That was almost like something _she _would say.

Luckily, none of our paths crossed often, (I'd only seen the whole group together a few times by accident throughout the city, and Ruka and her even less. Seeing Imai, however, was a regular occurrence, considering that she owned a couple of the businesses next to my own) all of us being absorbed in pursuing our dreams and yet reluctant to leave the city we had all grown up in, whether or not we had actually been out to _see_ it in the decade or so we'd spent here, locked up in the Academy.

But I'd seen some of her friends today. It was the blue and the cotton candy haired ones, who acted like they were twins, although I doubted they'd seen each other before the Academy. Anna and Nonoko, I remembered.

They'd been eating in the same restaurant that I normally had my lunch in, and were sitting in the booth right behind mine. I wondered if I should just get up and leave, but that would draw too much attention to myself.

I should've left when I had the chance.

They started talking, chatter and gossip about our old Alice crowd that I found myself listening to unconsciously. It was nice to finally hear about them. Even listening to Andou's upcoming wedding was better than nothing. Those old friends – or should I say acquaintances? – had been the only people I'd talked to – only people I'd _known – _in my time in the Academy. Cutting off my ties with them had been harder than I'd thought.

And then they started talking about Ruka. They were marveling about his proposal and upcoming wedding. It was supposed to be in two weeks. Apparently, an article had been included in the newspaper, one of the few that ran mostly Alice-related stories. My heart had nearly stopped. The bride's name had not been included, but it was obvious who it was.

Who else could it be? If he'd loved her even _half_ as much as I did, it would be enough for him to want to spend forever with her.

I'd got up and left, leaving a wad of bills on the table without even checking how much it was.

It shouldn't have surprised me, and it didn't, but that didn't stop my heart. It had been beating so fast, so wild that I felt that if it could it would just rip right out of my chest, whether it killed me or not. Maybe that would hurt less than it did now.

I was angry. Frustrated. Melancholic. I was everything at once, although none of my emotions seemed to include anything remotely resembling happiness. And so I found myself here, walking in an empty park, trying to convince myself all over again that letting her go had been the right choice. That making my life a living hell had been worth it.

Maybe I should leave the city. I'd been too weak to do it before, to cut off the last remaining strand of the frayed rope that connected our lives together, but it seemed like the only way now to still stay away from her. And I needed to stay away now, more than ever. She was getting – I refused to think it – and every second I spent here made me want to just run, all the way to her house, bang the door open, and kiss her into senselessness, engagement be damned.

It wasn't until the slow drizzle had turned to a downpour that I noticed how hot the air around me had become. My clothes were singed around the edges, the rain sizzling and evaporating in puffs of vapor as it hit my skin. My Alice was getting out of control again. It was something that had only started happening since a few months ago, whenever I got as stressed as I was now. But using my Alice now didn't make me as weak as it did before. Maybe it was because I didn't have to use it as often as I did in the Academy.

The downpour blurred my vision, but it came down in huge, fat drops rather than mist, and I could see farther than I normally could in rain. So I saw her the moment she turned the corner.

At first, she was nothing but a hazy figure, easily mistakable through the rain as a tree, or something even less remarkable. But as she got closer, it was easy to see the shape of a person, too small to be a man, hunched up to protect herself from the cold, her hair swinging in a drenched ponytail.

Maybe it was because I had been thinking about _her_ for so long, but I felt a sudden pang of pity when I saw this woman. I extended my heat to warm her up. I wasn't so worried by what her reaction would be. This part of the city was mostly Alices, and those who weren't knew enough to know not to get too shocked when they saw one in action. One of the other reasons I'd never moved. Where else could I use my Alice as freely as I normally did?

When she looked up though, I caught my breath for a whole other reason. She was barely a few feet away from me now, and even through the sheets of pounding rain and vapor rising from our skin, that face was unmistakable.

It was her.

Oh God.

I felt all the tension drain from my body. She still hadn't seen me, but I could tell she knew I was there. I was one of the only people with a fire Alice. She looked around frantically, and then moved closer.

When her eyes finally saw mine, a smile lit her face. She looked reluctant, happy to see me, but not sure how to react.

I nearly gave up. Who cared if Ruka loved her? Who cared if she was engaged, and would be a bride in two weeks? If I hadn't believed that fate was bullshit, then I would've blamed this encounter on destiny. What were the chances that she would show up, right when I wanted to see her? Right when I was thinking about her?

Then again, when _wasn't_ I thinking about her?

"Natsume." Her voice cut through the drumming of the rain and my thoughts, clearer than it should've been. It was almost all I could hear.

I stood up, and crossed the distance between us in three long strides. I didn't know what was controlling my body at that moment (because those steps had _not_ been voluntary), but I didn't care. I just had to get closer to her. I had to kiss her, feel her. It would probably be my only chance before she would be – _married_. I scowled. It sounded wrong that she should get married with someone other than me.

"Natsume," she said again, and this time, it was a soft-spoken question. She was probably wondering what I could want with her. I would've snickered. She really didn't understand anything, did she? Then again, if she did, she wouldn't be the girl I loved either.

Ever since the beginning when I started to distance myself from her, almost three years ago, I'd been the only one who'd actually tried to stay away. She had never made it easy for me to do what was right, to stay away from her, to keep myself away from those warm, brown eyes, to stop myself from wanting to hold her in my arms again, and all without even trying.

Right now was no exception.

I knew I shouldn't be trying to do anything, that she had already found happiness with Ruka, and that kissing her now might ruin it all.

But I had to. I _had_ to touch her again, even if it meant that I would go through hell later.

I took another step, and saw her eyes widen. I must've looked crazy to her. She moved back a bit.

"I'm sorry," I wanted to say. "I'm sorry for all the pain I've caused you, but I needed to keep you safe. I couldn't let them take you away like they did my sister. I couldn't lose somebody else. I'm sorry forever making it seem like I didn't love you. I'm sorry." But I bit my tongue to stop myself. It would be better if she thought I was crazy and drunk than to say that and prove that I still love her. It would only make us both hurt more. I didn't want to guilt her into not getting – I choked again – married.

I kept advancing, and when I was finally close enough, I wrapped her in my embrace, and lowered my lips to hers.

She didn't resist.

I was far too gone to even try to be gentle by the time I was kissing her, tasting her lips for what could probably be the last time. Her lips moved against mine, welcoming and suggesting, throwing me off guard.

My resolve was wearing thin. It would only be a few seconds before it would break altogether and I would push myself to do things that I would regret. I reluctantly tore myself away from her, and couldn't help but notice that she looked disappointed. Not at being kissed, but from me pulling away so quickly.

Could it be, I though with a strange mixture of elation and other emotions, that she hadn't gotten over me? But that was ridiculous. How could she love me after I'd left her like that? And she probably hadn't even known why I'd done it.

I took a step back, still facing her.

I had to go. There would be no use in making my affection clearer to her if there wasn't anything she could do about it. I didn't need to make her feel guilty for moving on.

I retreated further, backwards into the edge of the tree line, unable to take my gaze away from her. Then, taking a deep breath, I turned, my muscles tensed and ready to run.

"What, are you leaving again?" her tone was sour, but it also sounded almost like she was crying. I wondered why she sounded so bitter. _I_ was the one who'd gotten the shorter end of the stick, after all. She was happy, while what did I get? A lifetime of loneliness? Because – I had to face it – there wouldn't be anyone like her in my life again.

But even looking at it in that perspective, I couldn't find it in me to be angry with her.

I made the mistake of turning around. Her eyes were red from crying, and she looked almost as worn out as I did. "I can't stay."

"Why did you leave in the first place?" she asked, her voice still choked by sobs. "And don't you dare say that you don't like me anymore, because that would be bullshit." Curses didn't suit her either. She'd changed a lot.

Her tears were like torture. I resisted the urge to embrace her again, to make up for what I didn't know how to say in words. "I didn't want you to get hurt. Aoi was killed just to get to me, because I was with the Academy." My tone was blunt, not revealing the torrent of emotions raging inside me.

She gasped, and her sobs grew even louder. "I didn't know."

"Not a lot of people did."

We both waited there for a moment, almost like we were doing that minute of silence thing to honor someone who had passed away, although it was hardly silent with the gentle plops of the raindrops and the sizzling as they touched our skin.

"We're out of the Academy, though," she said finally, sounding curious. The rain had died down to a drizzle, washing away the last of her tears with it.

I hated the innocent way she sounded. Was she trying to torture me? Trying to make me say something that sounded horrible even in my head? I scowled at her. "So?"

"So I don't see why we can't be together now."

She said it so matter-of-factly, that I nearly lost it. She really had changed. Since when had she found sadistic pleasure out of torturing people? "Are you kidding me? You're engaged!"

"_What_? Who told you that?"

I frowned. Was she annoyed that I knew? She really didn't seem like a girl who would cheat on whoever she was with. And I couldn't do that to my friend, no matter how little I talked to him nowadays. "I heard. They said Ruka had proposed." I wasn't any easier the second time, trying to imagine her with anyone other than me wasn't something I liked doing.

The expression on her face was strange. Like she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She settled for a combination of both. It sounded like an odd hiccup. "He did. To _Hotaru_."

I frowned. What?

She made the same hiccupping noise again. "Me and Ruka barely went on two dates before we knew we weren't good for each other. Hotaru and him've been going out for almost two years now."

The rain suddenly seemed too loud in my ears. The only thought I could think was that I'd wasted almost two years that we could've been together for an idiotic misconception. The second was that at least this explained why I saw so little of them together. The third was to wonder if she would take me back.

But did I really care in the first place? Care whether or not she would take me back? I'd convince her, somehow. And suddenly, that seemed to be all I could think about. Would she still want to be with me, after all that I had put her through, for a now seemingly ridiculous cause, or would I have to waste the next months convincing her that my reasons were justified, and to forgive me?

Judging by our kiss, the odds were definitely leaning to the former, but I wondered what she would say when she wasn't being influenced by my kissing prowess.

I guess I'll just have to keep her occupied.

But as I stepped closer to her, I didn't let any of my thoughts show on my face. I walked back up to her, and kissed her again, and again.

"So, I guess this means we're back together." I moved my lips down to her neck.

"Hm?"

I grinned when she sounded distant. "I said, we're back together."

She pulled away this time. "Aren't you supposed to apologize or something?"

"Hey, I'm not the only one at fault here. Why didn't _you_ tell me that you two weren't together?" I pulled her back close.

She'd surprised me with her calmness. Normally, she would've thrown a fit and demanded that I explain myself, and then to stay away from her, and then she would've come rushing back after a few days of agonizing analysis, from which she would've deduced that I was right, like I normally was. Not that I minded this approach too much.

"If you remember, I actually tried to contact you hundreds of times. But you didn't pick up any of my calls. You won't do something this stupid again, will you?" She stared right at me, and it was like those chocolate eyes were trying to see right into me. "You won't leave me by myself again?"

"Never," I growled, placing my lips back down on hers, and it was a complete truth. I tried not to pay too much attention to the fact that she had basically called me stupid. I was thinking that myself. "I'll always want to be with you." It wasn't the same as an "I love you" but I knew she wouldn't mind. One of the many reasons we fit together so perfectly.

"Sorry anyway though," she finally said when we finally pulled away for air.

"For what?"

"I don't know. For not trying harder? For thinking that maybe you didn't love me? Everything, I guess. For the way it turned out."

I stared back into her eyes, my hands back around her waist like they belonged there.

She looked like she was waiting for something. When I stayed quiet, she sighed and asked, "Aren't you going to apologize too?"

"For what?"

She shrugged. She was still waiting for me to say it. I scoffed. Me, Natsume Hyuuga apologize? Not today. Well, at least not an apology she expected. "I already did."

"No you didn't."

"Yes, I did. Here, I'll do it again." And I bent my lips down to hers, loving the way they fit.

Just like I remembered.

Just like my Mikan.


End file.
